Yes, I bought a cell phone. Hello, crooks

When it comes to modern trends, I’m Neanderthal by choice: I’m Fred Flintstone trapped in George Jetson’s world.

I don’t buy new cars because they lose value too quickly. I don’t own a single pair of square-toed shoes, and I like cuffed dress pants. Are they in style now? If not, I’m sure they’ll make a comeback.

I lost my biggest battle to social peer pressure last week when sheer necessity forced my hand.

I ended a decade-long holdout and purchased a cell phone for personal use. The newspaper has provided me one since 1997, but I’ve driven Chronicle editors crazy with my reluctance to use it.

A visit to my local cell phone store on Lakeshore Avenue in Oakland brought the frenzy connected to the rollout of each new generation of smartphones into stark focus.

In casual conversation, the sales clerk mentioned in passing that her store, a Sprint Store by Wireless Lifestyle, was robbed last year when its exterior wall was breached by a vehicle ramming into it. Robbers used the same entry method four times in a little over a month.

Is a phone call — or a convenient handheld Internet device — really worth all that?

Apparently so, because law

enforcement agencies all over the Bay Area and around the nation are reporting rises in the theft of smartphones, iPods, laptops and electronic tablets — even as overall robberies in many cities have dropped.

It made me consider that carrying a smartphone around may not really be that smart after all.

Because the electronic gear that people wear like Batman’s utility belt has become a necessary part of daily life — and made unsuspecting citizens even more attractive targets for crime.

The Oakland Police Department has reported more than 1,000 thefts of electronic devices this year — and it’s no wonder.

The devices are portable, concealable and lightweight. Once pocketed, they’re all but gone.

It’s a scenario that has played out in cafes, restaurants, parks, public transportation and on all corners of Lake Merritt, the natural centerpiece and gathering spot for city residents.

The Oakland Police Department last week announced the arrest of 34 people suspected in dozens of street robberies involving the theft of iPhones, electronic gear, wallets and purses. Guns were used in some of the robberies, police said.

Oakland ranked No. 3 in cell phone thefts in U.S. cities in 2011, in a report according to a national cell phone security provider. Such news hardly comes as a surprise in Oakland, which posted among the highest robbery rates in the nation in 2011.

The rash of robberies has prompted local police agencies across the Bay Area to warn people to conceal electronic gear and avoid using expensive, enticing iPhones in public places — like parks, sidewalks, restaurants, cafes, public transit. The list seems to cover pretty much all the places you would be inclined to use a cell phone.

Some cities are trying to use technology to curb demand for phones on the black market.

In St. Louis, city officials have proposed a new dealers license requiring vital information from the seller, the phone identity number — and a thumbprint — in an effort to reduce illegal sales of stolen phones. The information would be shared in a database that allows law enforcement officials to track the sale of stolen goods.

So yeah, I guess I feel more connected to everyone since I patched into the digital world. I’m now equipped to talk until my tongue is numb and while the hours away tweeting about my day, my dinner plans and the 1966 Plymouth Valiant I saw the other day.

But the best connection remains the human one.

Creating community based on mutual respect starts with strangers who can look each other in the eye and say “hello.”

I hope it will always be more important to acknowledge the human being right next to you, at the store, on the bus or on the sidewalk, than the one you know through the worldwide network.